Hotter, Badder, and Unpopularer Takes

[Hindsight was 2020]

I enjoy crapping all over how poorly written Season 8 of Game of Thrones was as much as the next person, but the complaining over the last three episodes/what happens with the Iron Throne is very overrated and misplaced, IMO.  The series crossed the point of no return and had no redeemable future as soon as 1) the White Walkers' motivation was "explained" in a rushed, let's-get-this-BS-over-with-so-we-can-get-to-Kings-Landing manner by Bran in Episode 2 and 2) the Night King was killed off with zero back story, twist, "other-worldly" element, etc.  The series spent seven seasons doing two things that set it apart from generic fantasy or generic BBC-style historical dramas, neither of which ever have the mass appeal GoT had:

1) Introducing an existential threat in the first scene that was slowly undermining the petty human political squabbling ... this had reached a climax by Season 8, and the series HAD to deliver on a satisfying (enough) conclusion, or it would fail.

2) Building up a sense of mystery and hinting at a huge plot twist regarding the White Walkers, and specifically the connection between the Night King and Bran.  D&D chickened out in the eleventh hour, because this was out of their comfort zone.  They abandoned the tone and overall messaging of the series when it was too late to do so, and they tried to go back to "the battle for the Iron Throne," which was always going to seem pathetically hollow and a massive letdown.

You just can't spend so much effort and time telling us the political intrigue is ultimately meaningless in favor of a much more existential and interesting threat only to quickly dispatch of it and return to the same old stuff.  Imagine House of Cards but there is a giant asteroid coming for Earth, and the series is trying to show us that this political maneuvering is actually meaningless, and the characters have to come together to survive ... but then the asteroid misses by total luck, and the finale is a Presidential Election, haha.  That is the BS we got.

GoT died after Season 8, Episode 3.  Everything after was bound to disappoint no matter what.

Testify brother! Honestly as I’ve said on this thread before I think GOT was mortally wounded back in S5 while S6 and 7 were just a valiant effort to bandage it up until the inevitable fate in S8

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

I would rather debate with redeaglepolitics whether Macomb County, Michigan will trend D or R than have sex.

Ditto.

Truth

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Roe v Wade overturn in the summer of 2020 is inevitable, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just engaging in wishful thinking.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Trump is bicurious

[morgankingsley]

Trump is bicurious

i am curious how you came to this

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Trump is bicurious

i am curious how you came to this

His weird tendencies to take compliments on men's appearances a little past the point of comfort, and also at the weirdest times, and he's done it multiple times.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Roe v Wade overturn in the summer of 2020 is inevitable, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just engaging in wishful thinking.

Yes, such a totally reasonable action to take in an election year without a solid majority on the court.

[RINO Tom]

1) Relating to the above, abortion is ironically a great way to understand how Jeffersonian liberalism vs. Hamiltonian conservatism shouldn't be so hard for people to understand ... egalitarian liberals fighting for the right of everyday women all across the nation to make their own decisions with their own bodies and moralist conservatives looking for the state to directly intervene in stopping a sin and a societal evil, something that the average person should not be trusted with the "power" to control.  Simplified, of course, but it's a good example of how "big vs. small government" is just a ... dumbbbbb ... way to look at ideology sometimes.  Ironically, abortion is a social issue I hold a moderately liberal view on, and I would have definitely been in the Federalist camp.

2) The Promised Land is Bruce Springsteen's best song.

[jamestroll]

I will proudly say our constitution is outdated garbage.

[RINO Tom]

^ Sadly, this is only a bad take.

[Hammy]

Democrats need an embracing and expanding of the Christian Left within the party that brings goodwill towards others, inclusion, stewardship of the environment, and basic human welfare instead of ceding the faith to the far right, who are only interested in using Christianity as some sort of "cultural" identity rather than caring about any teachings if certain elements of the population are to be broken of their present right wing brainwashed state.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Springsteen sucks.

[RINO Tom]

Springsteen sucks.

Harsh, they’re one of the best live bands ever.  They rock a stage.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this (although it doesn't matter because nobody will read this post), but:

I recently heard an argument about how appeals to racism are common among certain groups of people because people in higher education are taught that labeling an argument racist is an automatic way to win an argument. However, these arguments are not incredibly compelling outside of higher ed, so there is a class of people who employ these arguments to fall mostly on deaf ears.

I'm trying to think more critically about this argument but I think not only is there something to it, but it's very generalizable. I think people are taught that there are certain ways to win arguments which essentially end the argument (e.g., why even debate an argument that is obviously racist?) and are conditioned to not critically evaluate arguments/debates any further (or, rather, are not conditioned to further evaluate the arguments). This trains people to substitute their critical reasoning skills with lazy debating tactics.

A great example of this is hypocrisy. It's pretty widely accepted that hypocrisy is bad, so people are taught to try to short-circuit arguments by finding hypocrisies in the debater (or in the ideology of the debater) rather than address the argument. But, if one is simultaneously presenting two contradictory arguments, perhaps one of them is right. Treating the hypocrisy as the endpoint of the debate stops one from critically evaluating which of the two sides, if any, is correct.

Another good example which is especially prominent in leftist and social justice circles is privilege/wealth shaming. It's so incredibly easy to short-circuit an opponent's argument by pointing out the privilege associated with the view that, at this point, many people are trained much more to do that than actually address the point.

I've been monitoring myself over the last week or so and I fall into these lazy patterns of debating/critical thinking, so I don't want to create the impression that I feel I'm above these things. But it's very interesting to see how common these behaviors are!

[Diabolical Materialism]

IPAs suck. Hops add absolutely nothing to a beer. Don't know why ridiculously hoppy beers have caught on recently, but they suck.

[Virginiá]

People who use public restrooms and leave anything resembling a mess are terrible people.

It must be an unpopular opinion because it seems to happen so often that the only conclusion to draw is that people reject the idea of cleaning up after themselves. I mean, who destroys a public bathroom and just walks away without cleaning anything up? Do they realize some poor person has to go in there at some point and deal with that? Or even more, that the next person who needs to use the bathroom may not be able to without cleaning it up themselves? The vast majority of these people would not leave their own bathrooms in such a disgusting state. The only real excuses that measure up are if you are enfeebled and just incapable of doing it, or if you either meant to, but an emergency came up, or if there was absolutely no paper towels/toilet paper nearby (and nothing within the vicinity of the bathroom) to work with.

[morgankingsley]

People who use public restrooms and leave anything resembling a mess are terrible people.

I am blown away that this would even be a bad take

[DINGO Joe]

IPAs suck. Hops add absolutely nothing to a beer. Don't know why ridiculously hoppy beers have caught on recently, but they suck.

Hops add something to beer, usually an unpleasant aftertaste.  Obviously, beer making has entered it's mania phase.

[Diabolical Materialism]

IPAs suck. Hops add absolutely nothing to a beer. Don't know why ridiculously hoppy beers have caught on recently, but they suck.

Hops add something to beer, usually an unpleasant aftertaste.  Obviously, beer making has entered it's mania phase.

I just don't know why it couldn't be porters being the craft brew flavor of the decade trend.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

I am still supporting Michael Franken in Iowa, Greenfield is sh!t

[Hindsight was 2020]

Bit of a dated topic but in hindsight the ending to the Sopranos was brilliant. Even if you don’t buy into the theory Tony got shot by the guy in the members only jacket his story was over. Just the prior scene Tony was informed that Carlo had flipped and the feds were about to indict him. So really the story is over he either dies or goes to jail so all that is left is black nothingness

[Kleine Scheiße]

night is an unbelievably good springsteen song but incident on 57th street is without a doubt his peak

edit: all of nebraska is a close second

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

"OK Boomer" is already a played out and beaten to death meme.

[KaiserDave]

Here's a big one: I can't stand baby yoda

Totally agree, total waste of time and space. Highly overrated.

[Diabolical Materialism]

The homeless deserve more respect than the troops.